Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale keeps delivering returns
The statistics don’t lie. The opportunities for buyers to get return on investment are better at the Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale than any other sale in Australia.
This article has produced by and sponsored by Tasracing
When trainer John Blacker went to the 2025 Magic Millions Tasmanian Yearling Sale and purchased eight horses for a combined $166,000, he couldn’t have dreamed that those horses would have banked more than that in prize money by the next time he returns to Quercus Park in Carrick for the 2026 sale on February 23.
Aristopolos, a first-crop son of St Mark’s Basilica, was the most expensive of Blacker’s 2025 purchases, with the Armidale Stud-bred colt costing $60,000 early in the sale.
In the space of four starts, he has won $218,705 in prize money, plus an additional $43,600 in bonuses, in the meanwhile establishing himself as Tasmania’s best two-year-old.
He stamped that with a stunning 8.5-length romp in the Magic Millions 2YO Classic at Hobart earlier this month and will look to complete the sweep in the upcoming Gold Sovereign Stakes at Launceston.
Aristopolos is the only one of Blacker’s eight horses from last year’s sale to hit the track, but with over quarter of a million already in the bank, he is already paying for the others, It is just the latest example of the opportunity on offer buying in Tasmania.
Later in that same Hobart card in the same colours, Daytona Diva delivered a valuable black type in the Strutt Stakes for Blacker and her owners including former trainer Tanya Hanson, who picked her out of the 2024 Tasmanian Yearling Sale for $40,000.
The daughter of Anders has now won $168,430, plus $21,800 in bonuses in an eight-start career. She will look to add to that in the $150,000 Tasmanian Oaks on Friday night.
She is one of five stakes winners from that 2024 Tasmanian Yearling Sale, a list that includes Sanniya and Mazzini, both purchased by Star Thoroughbreds and Randwick Bloodstock.
Sanniya cost $67,500 and has already returned nearly six times that in prize money with six wins from seven starts, including a brilliant win in the Group 3 Mystic Journey Stakes earlier this month.
Mazzini, a $145,000 sale-topper, already has over $300,000 in prize money and bonuses, with six wins from eight starts.
Yum, passed in at that sale, is a Listed winner on the mainland for her breeders the Breese family, while Zany Girl, who cost $65,000, is a Listed winner with over $250,000 banked, having started her career with a bang for Prime Thoroughbreds and trainer Stuart Gandy.
Those five horses between them have already banked over $1.3 million in prize money and bonuses and they are only halfway through their three-year-old season.
When you consider that you could have purchased the whole catalogue for $2.8 million, it shows the rare opportunity on offer when purchasing out of Tasmania, where the price of an average horse was just $23,506 last year and $29,984 in 2024.
There are 125 lots catalogued for the 2026 edition of the sale on February 23. Among them are the half-sister to Mazzini (and Tasmania’s best horse Durazzo) by Brutal (Lot 70), the Pinatubo half-brother to Yum (Lot 93) and the Hanseatic half-sister to recent Pakenham winner Tough Romance (Lot 34).
There are also siblings to Still a Star, I’ll Have a Bit, Tango’s Daughter Celavi, Greatham Boy, The Spirit of Zero and Mystical Pursuit.
“We have a great line up of yearlings – a number of significant lots by high class stallions – buyers will be impressed,” Magic Millions Managing Director Barry Bowditch said.
“The sale each and every year churns out a number of black type performers both across Tasmania and the mainland – recently the sale has done a remarkable job with a number of good winners in Hong Kong led by Bundle Award.”
Bundle Award, purchased by John Foote in the 2020 edition of the sale for $110,000, is a Group 3 winner in Hong Kong who has won the equivalent of AU$2.6 million. You could have purchased the whole catalogue for $3.3 million that year.
This article has produced by and sponsored by Tasracing
Related Articles
A summer of Cups and stars in the making
As Tasmania’s summer comes into its own in January, so too does the quality of thoroughbred racing, with the Devonport Cup setting the scene for the Tasmanian Summer Racing Festival to peak over the next two months.
Australia stakes its claim as the world’s premier racing investment market
The Australian thoroughbred industry’s pitch to the world has never been so strong, as the 2026 Investor’s Guide from Aushorse points out.
Andrew Rule – Q and A – The Chosen Few
Andrew Rule’s latest book, The Chosen Few, is a quest to name the ten greatest Australian and New Zealand racehorses of all time. In a special Q and A, he unveils his motivation for writing it and the things that surprised him when researching it.